TIFFANY (29)

Click [ HERE ] for the PDF version.

LOCATION
The Tiffany neighborhood is located on the western side of Grand Avenue along the section containing St. Louis University’s Medical Complex. The neighborhood is defined by Chouteau Avenue on the North, Interstate 44 on the South, Grand Boulevard on the East and 39th Street on the West.

HISTORY
The Tiffany neighborhood as well as present-day Shaw and McRee Town neighborhoods were originally part of the common fields laid out by the French west of Grand Avenue. These included the Cul de Sac Common and the St. Louis Common to the North and the Prairie des Noyers, laid out in 1769, to the South. During this early period, Grand lay far beyond the edge of the settlement of St. Louis. Settlers cultivated various crops in the outlying fields and constructed huts for overnight stays.

After the Louisiana Purchase, confirmation of ownership by various French families was secured from the American Government. With time, many in turn sold their tracts to land speculators. By the 1860s, much of the northern area, including what is now the Tiffany neighborhood, had become the property of Mrs. Mary McRee. The Compton and Dry’s pictorial atlas of 1875 offer several birds-eye views of the area. Except for a few houses on the perimeter streets, most of the land is made up of meadows and cornfields. Some industry had begun to develop towards the railroads to the north and in McRee City (now Forest Park Southwest), but for the most part the area remained undeveloped.

This began to change in 1888 when Mary McRee sold her land to a developer. Dundee Place was platted a year later, covering the area between McRee and Park Avenues, westward from Grand to Old Manchester Road (now Vandeventer). With the completion of the Grand Avenue Viaduct in 1890 and electrified streetcar lines by the turn of the century, the area was transformed into a middle-class commuter suburb. The neighborhood takes its name for one of these streetcar lines. The Tiffany line connected transit offices and shops at 39th Street, then called Tiffany Street, and Park with Chouteau Avenue.

During the same period, the beginnings of the present day medical complex emerged. The Josephine Heikamp Hospital opened in 1900 at Grand Boulevard and Henrietta Street. The same year, Bethesda General, that had begun as a refuge for abandoned children, was donated a hospital site at Grand and Vista Avenue. In 1903, St. Louis University re-established its medical department when it acquired the merged Marion-Sims-Beaumont Hospital medical college. The medical school was augmented by two hospitals: the Firmin Desloge, opened in 1933 and Cardinal Glennon Hospital for Children, opened by the Sisters of St. Mary in 1954.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s, many of these institutions expanded their facilities, representing a demonstration of faith put in the medical center and its urban location when others chose to move to the county. The middle-class residential areas began to change radically in the mid-1960’s, within a few years of the construction of Interstate 44. The highway cut off the neighborhood from residential areas to the south, what is now the Shaw neighborhood. Tiffany, like many city neighborhoods during that time, experienced a general level of urban decay and middle-class flight to the suburbs.

In response the deterioration of residential areas, several of the medical institutions formed the Midtown Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation (MMCRC) in 1976. Through the redevelopment efforts of MMCRC, the Tiffany neighborhood was transformed. Newly painted and renovated homes surrounded a new community park and landscaped areas. With the changes in the tax laws in 1987, reinvestment stopped. By the late eighties, many apartments were vacant and landscaping had deteriorated. A number of apartments that had been designated for market rate by the original development plan were rented to government low-income tenants. These issues brought together members of the Tiffany Community Association to form a long rang plan in the early nineties. As a result of actions taken, the neighborhood has stabilized considerably and reinvestment once again begun.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
Tiffany is a small well-maintained neighborhood on the near south side. Still characterized by Victorian and turn-of-the-century architecture, Tiffany is now a residential “pocket” anchored by the distinguished reputation of its major neighborhood institutions, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and St. Louis University Medical Center. These institutional, as well as commercial, uses are concentrated along Grand Boulevard and between Park Avenue and Rutger Street. St. Louis University Medical Center occupies approximately 20 percent of the area. Historically, industrial uses have centered around the northern portion of the area along Chouteau and 39th Street within the vicinity of railroads and transport. Peveley Dairy continues as an important industrial use at Grand and Chouteau. Much of the old warehouses and long underutilized industrial sites along 39th Street are now in the process of being cleared for redevelopment.

The residential area, except for a small patch along Hickory Street, lies south of Park Ave. and the medical complex. Designated a Federal Historic District in 1983, most of the residences were built in the early 1900s of brick and vary between one and three stories. Of the 620 total housing units, seventy-two percent of Tiffany residences are two-family, four-family or multi-family structures. Nevertheless, with a relatively high number of homeowners and the high quality of rehab, due to MMCRC’s stringent design standards, Tiffany is an attractive and stable neighborhood. The neighborhood’s rehabilitated homes, apartments, and condominiums blend vintage masonry exteriors with modern indoor conveniences. Tiffany Park, the picturesque one-acre park at Spring and Blaine Avenues, features a gazebo, fountain, playground, streetscaping and community center. The neighborhood is one that continues to attract residents of various cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds. In the last census in 1990, African-Americans made up the largest proportion, seventy-five percent, of this diverse mix and residents showed a varied range of low, moderate, middle and upper-middle incomes.

INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
The prominent institutions in Tiffany are found along Grand Boulevard, which has evolved into a center for the practice and study of medicine. In addition to St. Louis University’s medical school and South Campus, there are several hospitals in the area, including SLU Medical Center, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and Compton Heights Hospital. The area has also attracted smaller more specialized treatment facilities such as the Life Care Center, which provides treatment for Alzheimer’s patients and health-related social service providers such as the Ronald McDonald House. The Ronald McDonald House provides rooms for families with children being treated at Cardinal Glennon Hospital or St. Louis Children’s Hospital. As mentioned, hospitals in the area have a history of involvement in the redevelopment of Tiffany through membership in the Midtown Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation. As the neighborhood's redevelopment corporation, MMCRC is responsible for renovating and managing apartments in the neighborhood as well as providing residents and potential buyers with financing, insurance, and renovation services.

In the vicinity of these medical institutions on Park Avenue is the International Institute. Active in the City since 1919, this non-profit organization helps resettle refugees and immigrants by assisting with housing, translations, job placement and medical needs. The institute’s education program consists of English as Second Language (ESL) classes for children and adults, after-school tutoring and a summer youth program. Since moving to this location in 1982, the International Institute has played a key role in changing the face of South Grand into a diverse multi-cultural community.

Although there are few institutions and organization within the residential area itself, residents have access to a number schools, religious organizations and services in the nearby area. Kottmeyer Early Learning Center, a Magnet School for pre-school age children, and Gallaudet School for the Deaf are located on Grand Boulevard along the eastern border of the Tiffany neighborhood. Children in the community are also close by Wyman Elementary, east of Grand, and Sherman Elementary(C.E.C) and St. Margaret of Scotland in the Shaw neighborhood. While there are no churches within the neighborhood boundaries, Christ Lutheran Church, Compton Heights Christian, Tyler Place Presbyterian and St. Margaret of Scotland, all churches in the surrounding area, provide services such as food pantries, summer camps and youth groups. The Five Church Association, based at Compton Heights Christian Church, was formed with the idea that area churches could provide for the community better by pooling resources together. The organization helps with basic needs such as food, clothing, financial and medical assistance as well as providing youth activities and a summer day camp.

Born out of redevelopment efforts by the MMCRC, the Tiffany Community Association continues to be active force in neighborhood. This organization of residents sponsors neighborhood events and forms special committees to address neighborhood concerns.

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Tiffany is a neighborhood that not only emerged out of planning and development efforts but also later defined and solidified its boundaries and identity through such efforts. After blossoming under the investments of the MMCRC, there followed a period of physical and economic deterioration. In response to these conditions, the Tiffany Community Association began a planning process, resulting in the 1991 Tiffany Neighborhood Long Range Plan. In addition to outlining the strengths of the neighborhood, the plan described several concerns that arose during this time period, for example:

• the decline in the quality of landscaping in the neighborhood
• disproportionate amounts of low income subsidized housing
• lack of neighborhood sense of boundaries and cohesiveness
• unacceptable levels of crime and location near high crime, blighted industrial areas[i.e. McRee Town]

To address these concerns, it suggested:

• installing light pole banners on the neighborhood perimeter
• closing a liquor store on 39th Street
• studying the street arrangement plan
• researching redevelopment plan for area on and west of 39th Street[McRee Town]

Following these plans, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital hired consulting design and engineering firms, resulting in the Tiffany Neighborhood Streetscape Development Plan in 1993. Like the earlier plan, it included measures to limit traffic in Tiffany, but addressed the economic decline in adjacent McRee Town by proposing the elimination of deteriorated commercial and residential properties west of Tiffany’s 39th Street border. Of these planning efforts, the most evident result was closure of streets along 39th Street and the addition of banners at entranceways.

These actions did create the desired effect of reducing through traffic and defining the boundaries of the neighborhood. Subsequently, with the renewal of investment, the neighborhood has once again flourished as a viable urban neighborhood. Nevertheless, while at the same time creating a buffer for Tiffany from some of the challenges faced by areas to the west, the closure of streets along 39th Street cut off the McRee Town neighborhood and most likely exacerbated its isolation from economic and social resources.

In the summer of 1998, the Missouri Botanical Garden initiated a community-based planning process with residents of Shaw, McRee Town, Tiffany and Southwest Garden neighborhoods.

The resulting Garden District Plan proposes linking the four surrounding neighborhoods as members of a "Garden District". In addition to developing “greenways” along feeder streets and improving the lighting and treatment of highway underpasses, the plan suggests dramatic redevelopment in McRee Town. The plan proposes the creation of passive greenspace, athletic fields and a community recreation center west of 39th. In the past, planning more often looked towards large-scale clearance of McRee Town and conversion to other uses such as industrial rather than supporting residential development of the area. Nevertheless, the above goals will come at a cost, the lost of four residential blocks, a significant portion of the neighborhood. The plan also calls for the construction of 100 new single-family homes, 75 town house units and 60 units of elderly housing, which will be made available to those McRee Town residents displaced. More positively, this process encourages these communities, separated in the past by the construction of highways and street closures, to work together.

As described in a Post Dispatch article on September 23, 1999, Willert Home Products, Inc., also has new plans for development in the area. Willert Home Products, which makes products such as toilet bowl fresheners, mothballs and fly swatters, is located just west of 39th Street and has improved the general appearance of the throughway by adding murals and landcaping. Will Willert, owner of the small manufacturing business, has plans to redevelop the long-vacant Bi-State site. The site is made up of three parcels along both sides of 39th Street between Vista and Park Avenues. Willert envisions factory or warehouse space on the 10-acre parcel east of 39th Street and a range of specialty shops and perhaps even a miniature golf course constructed on the two smaller parcels west of 39th Street.